Efficient integrated sustainability reporting
CSR reporting, ESG, and the EU taxonomy place new demands on companies: Build trust and transparency using SAP Sustainability Control Tower!
Efficient integrated sustainability reporting::
CSR reporting, ESG and the EU taxonomy place new demands on companies
For companies, their environmental footprint has become a key economic performance indicator. Which investments and economic activities are green and ecologically sustainable and enable companies to positively differentiate themselves on the market?
The preparation of a sustainability report is also becoming increasingly important for supervisory authorities and regulators. In this context, the terms CSR directive, ESG reporting and EU taxonomy regularly come up. But what and what effort is really behind these terms?
CSR Directive, ESG Reporting and EU Taxonomy
The abbreviation “ESG” stands for Environmental, Social and Governance.
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) as a supplement to the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) describes the obligation of companies to comment on ESG issues in their management reports. Currently, the focus is primarily on the topic of sustainability in the sense of environmental protection; however, continuous extensions and concretizations are also expected for the other requirement areas.
The EU taxonomy is intended to open up the possibility of categorizing financial products in particular according to their sustainability. The aim is to provide investors and EU citizens with a structured evaluation scheme (0-100 points). An easy introduction to the EU Taxonomy is provided by the EU Taxonomy Compass.
New sustainability reporting requirements for insurance companies and banks
Large listed companies, banks and insurance companies are required to publish sustainability information. If the company falls under reporting as defined by the CSR Directive, categorization according to the EU taxonomy is also required. The extension of the non-financial statement to include EU taxonomy disclosures is regulated in Article 8 and, in addition, in the delegated act to Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation.
In addition to the distinction between financial and non-financial companies, various key performance indicators (KPIs) have been defined to provide information on how large the proportion of taxonomy-compliant activities is:
- Non-financial companies have to report on the environmentally sustainable share of their revenues, operating expenses (“OpEx”) and investment expenses(“CapEx”).
- Financial companies are required to disclose business model-specific KPIs:
- Insurance companies to report taxonomy-compliant business from insurance and reinsurance business (except life insurance).
- Banks must report the green asset ratio (GAR), among other things.
The challenge: Consistent sustainability reporting and management
The number of publications of ESG standards documents by the European Commission and other organizations has exploded. Relevant publications now exceed 150 documents, and the complexity continues to grow.
Companies therefore not only have to sift through the constant stream of new ESG publications, they also have to prepare for the taxonomy-compliant collection of their sustainability metrics. Successful “sustainability” management and reporting requires consistent data collection and processing throughout the entire business processes. The business processes relevant for sustainability management must be monitored and a sustainability data hub must be established. Otherwise, the ESG corporate goals cannot be achieved.
Reporting and managing sustainability therefore poses numerous business and technological challenges. For a fully comprehensive implementation, integration into the leading ERP system, the consolidation system and the other reporting systems of the company in the sense of a so-called aggregation layer is necessary. The last major project for the banking/insurance market with a comparable scope of data requirements was probably the implementation of the Basel II or Solvency II requirements.
The benefits: Build trust and transparency through sustainability reporting with SAP
Add an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) layer to your reporting using real-time data within SAP, and have non-financial metrics calculated for you in addition to financial metrics.
The benefits of SAP software solutions lie particularly in the area of calculations for the uniform taxonomy-compliant standard model, data storage and collection, and reporting, which enables automation of ESG reporting.
Your benefits with sustainability reporting from SAP:
- Analysis and implementation of sustainable business data reporting according to ESG reporting framework (CSR incl. requirements from EU taxonomy, GRI, SASB, IBC, WEF and more)
- Development and documentation of the adaptation of your business processes (BPMN, EPK)
- Selection and implementation of the appropriate SAP technology
- Planning and implementation of the processes for data enrichment from SAP and non-SAP applications into a central Sustainability Data Hub
- Harmonization, Allocation and calculation of granular sustainability key figures along established structures from Finance, HR, Real Estate and Operations
- Transparent overviews of sustainability key figures
- Strategic Decision-making with regard to ESG issues with a simulation of the social, environmental, governance and profit impacts
- Sustainability performance management
- Operational support for your sustainability solution
Your sustainability reporting with Convista: We support you in your sustainability project
Are you looking for a lean and simple reporting solution or a full implementation using the SAP Sustainability Control Tower? Then you have come to the right place!
In order to meet the requirements for sustainability reporting, we support you fully with our interdisciplinary teams and professionals from the areas of Financial Reporting, Insurance Services, Processes, Compliance and SAP Architects.
As your competent partner, we promise you a sustainability solution that is optimally tailored to your needs. Together with our partners, we offer a comprehensive consulting package for your project, which can include professional support, process adaptation and documentation, technical implementation and operational support.
Our services for your sustainability project:
- Cross-reporting purpose conception of the company-specific adaptation requirements for successful sustainability reporting and management
- Integration of the sustainability solution into your corporate infrastructure and architecture
- Selection of suitable reporting solutions taking into account the individual system landscape and system interfaces
- Design and development of a company-specific operational ESG data model
- Technical configuration and implementation of a sustainability management solution if required
- Technical support in defining, implementing and certifying the quantitative and qualitative disclosures in cooperation with auditing companies (auditable “modelling” of the data procurement process)
- Training of (business) users and the IT department in the operational use, optimization and further development of your individual sustainability solution
- Process-related implementation of SAP user authorization and roles
Possible technical solutions:
- SAP Sustainability Control Tower as a complete solution (cloud-based)
- Individual reporting with SAP Analytics Cloud (cloud-based)
- Convista ESG reporting in a central finance and insurance-specific data hub (on-premise)
